DENISE LASSIMONNE

Denise Lassimonne was born in 1903 in Camberley, Surrey, England, of French parentage. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and also with Tobias Matthay. In 1921, on the death of her father, after already having been a favourite Matthay pupil for some four years, Denise Lassimonne was adopted into the Matthay family. In 1923 she won the Sterndale Bennett Prize. She taught at the Tobias Matthay Pianoforte School and later was Professor of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music where, in 1957, she was made Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music. She sponsored and edited Myra Hess by her friends, a book of affectionate memorial tributes in 1965. In addition to writing several other books, Lassimonne also composed. She died on 2 January 1994.